As Climate Disruption Advances, 26 Percent of Mammals Face Extinction
Tuesday, 06 January 2015 09:33 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report- font size
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(Image: Polar bear, air pollution via Shutterstock; Edited: JR/TO)
Two recently released studies brought bad news for those living near coastlines around the world. One published in the peer-reviewed Nature Climate Change, the other in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the studies showedthat existing computer models might have severely underestimated the risk to the Greenland ice sheet from warming global temperatures.
Bear in mind that if Greenland's entire ice sheet melts, 20 feet would be added to global sea levels.
As if that isn't enough of an indicator of how fast anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is happening across the globe, two days after delegates from more than 190 countries had gathered in Peru at the annual climate summit, the World Meteorological Organization reported that 2014 was tied with 2010 as the hottest year on record, and rejected popular claims that global warming had "paused."
Also last month, leading atmospheric scientist Dr. Philip Mote released some of his latest numbers on ACD and went on to say, "We're running out of time to control dangerous climate change." He pointed out that a mere 2.2 percent rise in temperature would increase the areas burned in Idaho by a staggering 500 to 600 percent.
The cost to poor countries that are being forced to adjust to increasingly hot temperatures would be at least two to three times higher than was thought previously.
Mote's warning, like countless other warnings from leading scientists about the necessity for immediate and dramatic actions toward mitigating ACD, is already going unheeded. This was evidenced by the so-called Lima climate deal that was reached at the aforementioned climate summit in Peru, where every country in attendance agreed to submit a plan for addressing their carbon dioxide emissions. However, the plans are only voluntary, and countries can promise to cut as much or little as they wish.
As ACD progresses, the financial costs continue to escalate. The UN's environment agency recently announced that the cost to poor countries that are being forced to adjust to increasingly hot temperatures would be at least two to three times higher than was thought previously. To add insult to injury, these estimates are based on best-case scenarios that predict dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, several key charts show that the United States is on track for at least a catastrophic 9-degree Fahrenheit increase by 2100, and drought conditions for most of the country that will likely exceed those of the Great Dust Bowl before the end of this century.
In this month's Climate Disruption Dispatch, we look at how ACD is progressing rapidly on every front - and how even some diehard climate deniers are starting to recognize the dire danger we face.
Earth
Up in Alaska, melting permafrost is threatening even more infrastructure and homes, given that bridges, roads and airport runways have been built upon permafrost in many areas of the state. A recent report showed that permafrost south of Alaska's Brooks Range (the northernmost mountain range in the state) is now becoming unstable.
Also in Alaska (as well as Canada), winter ticks are becoming more prevalent with warming temperatures, endangering the survival of the moose population, according to another recent report.
Warming temperatures in the Arctic are causing shifts in the gene pool of animals: Scientists are reporting an increasing likelihood of "grolar bears," which are a cross between grizzly and polar bears. According to scientists, this would bring deleterious consequences, given that "genetic incompatibilities in hybrids will erase traits crucial to the long-term survival of both parent species." They warn that if that happens, "then we can expect a great reduction in those populations, and possibly extinctions."
Dramatic changes are occurring in the tropical regions of the planet as well. Researchers recently released a report that issued a stunning warning about an impending coral bleaching event that would be the worst seen in at least the last two decades. Coral bleaching is happening in large part due to ocean acidification that is resulting from ACD, and is particularly worrisome when one considers that more than half of all oceanic life spends some of its life in coral reefs.
Warming temperatures have also increased the likelihood that dengue fever could spread to Europe and the mountainous regions of South America, according to the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
Tropical deforestation, caused by both ACD and logging, could cause "significant and widespread" shifts in rainfall distribution and temperatures, which will affect agriculture far and wide.
Another recent study showed that tropical deforestation, caused by both ACD and logging, could cause "significant and widespread" shifts in rainfall distribution and temperatures, which will affect agriculture far and wide.
Pine bark beetle infestations, which are exploding across vast swaths of North America, are now happening as far south as Tucson, Arizona, where pine trees are now dropping like flies.
California's ongoing drought is having profound impacts on wildlife: Animals like squirrels, deer and bear are fleeing their homes and even risking their lives to search for food sources that have been dramatically diminished.
Another recent study showed that ACD-related habitat loss is now a threat to 314 more species of birds, whose numbers are already in decline.
Major western US cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas are on an increasingly perilous path to losing access to water, according to a recent report. Without a dramatic shift in how they manage their water resources, devastating results are guaranteed.
As storms continue to intensify, the Philippines' climate chief warned recently that his country lacks the systems necessary to cope with the worsening impacts of ACD. The Philippines was recently hammered by yet another massive typhoon.
In Australia, Sydney and its surrounding region can expect an increasing number of hot days, shifting rainfall patterns and more extreme fire danger as a result of ACD, according to recently published high-resolution modeling of the future climate there.
A recently published study revealed that deadly cholera outbreaks are almost certain to increase in the more vulnerable regions of the world due to ACD, since severe heat waves and more frequent and intense flooding are on the rise.
Lastly in this section, another recent study showed that the Amazonian peatlands store approximately 10 times the amount of carbon as do undisturbed rainforests in adjacent areas, which makes them all the more critical in efforts to mitigate ACD. The areas in question are already mostly unprotected, and the deforestation there would result in "massive carbon emissions," according to the report.
Water
California's ongoing drought once again leads the water section of the dispatch this month. A recently released study showed that the drought was that state's worst in 1,200 years. Clearly an end to the drought is nowhere in sight, as recent NASA satellite data showed that it will take 11 trillion gallons of water to recover from the drought. In some areas of California, rural wells are running dry, forcing residents to carry their water in buckets.
The drought, which is bringing one of the richest states in the United States to its knees, is turning much of the center of California into a dust bowl. That area happens to be where the United States gets half of all of its vegetables and nuts.
California's almonds, which provide $11 billion annually to the state's economy, are now under threat due to the drought, as the water supply for the almond orchards is running dry. In fact, it's gotten so bad that farmers in the southern Central Valley have to depend on charity to fill their pantries with food since agricultural yields have diminished so dramatically.
In Central America, drought has pushed 2.5 million people into food insecurity, according to a recent UN report. The drought there is "turning into a creeping humanitarian crisis."
Governors of eight western US states met recently in, ironically, Las Vegas, in order to discuss how to cope with the ongoing drought that is severely impacting the majority of the American West. At the meeting, Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, acknowledged that his agency is dealing with a two-headed dragon: drought on the Colorado River (which 40 million people rely upon for their water) as well as in the Sierra Nevada and Northern California.
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